Marriage:
A Hearty Decline
2006 saw the lowest marriage rate on record in the UK with 275,140 people getting married. Compare this to 480,285 people in 1972 and it gives some idea of how attitudes have so vastly changed.This drop has occurred despite changes to the law in 1971 following the Divorce Reform Act 1989, which made it easier for divorcees to remarry. Other statutory changes aimed at making marriage more inclusive, for example, by allowing civil ceremonies to take place potentially anywhere, were still insufficient in preventing the downward slope.
After the Civil Partnerships Act 2004 came into force in December 2005, the number of same-sex couples undergoing the ceremony was initially high, but over the following dropped dramatically, with a 46% drop between 2006 and 2007.
Do these figures represent a decline in the popularity of marriage in general? Or is tied to an increasing indifference toward the religious process?
A spokesperson for the Church of England told the BBC: “There are a complex range of factors influencing the continued trend of couples delaying marriage or avoiding it altogether, not least the mistaken idea that cohabitation is a form of marriage."
"Marriage affirms the goodness and rightness of love between a man and a woman, affirms this in the public sphere, beyond private arrangements, and is the best option for couples to grow together in mutual support."
However, the Church is attempting to win many of the couples that are resorting to civil services by releasing a new Marriage Measure to take effect later this year. If successful, it will expand the choice of churches where couples can choose to wed.
Father William Muir of Christ the King Catholic Church in Bournemouth attributes the decline to a modern culture of instant gratification:
“When people go to the supermarket they don’t want to queue, they want everything now or they haven’t got time for it. It’s the same with marriage: they don’t want the rows, they don’t want the commitment or the hard work.”